Описание
How Sociologists View Social Problems: The Abortion Dilemma
Lisa felt desperate. The argument with her
grandmother seemed to have gone on forever, and they both were now at their wits’ end.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Lisa.
You’re taking the life of an innocent baby!” her
grandmother said once again.
“You’re wrong!
There’s only one
life involved here—
mine!” said Lisa.
“I told you. It’s my
body and my life. I’ve
worked too hard for that manager’s job to let a
pregnancy ruin everything.”
“But Lisa, you have a new responsibility—to
the baby.”
“But you don’t understand! It’s not a baby!”
“Of course, you’re carrying a baby! What do
you think it is, a puppy?”
“You’re being ridiculous! You’re trying to
judge my life by your standards. You never
wanted a career. All you ever wanted was to
raise a family.”
“That’s not the point,” her grandmother
pressed. “You’re carrying a baby, and now you
want to kill it.”
“How can you talk like that? This is just a
medical procedure—like when you had your
appendix taken out.”
“I can’t believe my own granddaughter is
saying that butchering a baby is like taking out
an appendix!”
Lisa and her grandmother look at each
other, knowing they are worlds apart. They both
begin to cry inside.
“But you don’t
understand! It’s not
a baby!”
1 Understand the
sociological imagination
(sociological perspective),
explain the difference
between a personal and
a social problem, and
explain the significance of
social location.
The Sociological Imagination
Like Lisa and her grandmother, when we are confronted with problems, we usually view
them in highly personal—and often emotional—terms. Our perspective is usually limited to our immediate surroundings. With our eyes focused on the things that are close
to us, the larger social forces recede from view. Yet it is these broader social patterns that
shape the particular problems we experience. In this text, you will learn how to connect
your personal life with the larger social context. You will also understand how social
problems develop and how we might be able to solve them.
What is the Sociological Imagination?
One of the goals of this text is to help you develop your sociological imagination. This
term, coined by sociologist C. Wright Mills, refers to looking at people’s actions and
attitudes in the context of the social forces that shape them. As Mills (1959b) said, to
understand our experiences in life, we must understand our historical period and the
social forces that are sweeping the time in which we live.
Another way of saying this is that we want to understand how our personal troubles
(the problems we experience) are connected to the broader conditions of our society. As
with Lisa and her grandmother, for example, attitudes toward abortion don’t “come out
of nowhere.” These attitudes are related to conditions in society: in this case, technology
(birth control and surgical techniques), gender relations (women’s rights), and the law
(abortion being legal or illegal). Change these, and ideas about abortion will change. As
we apply the sociological imagination in this text, you will discover how forces greater
than yourself set the stage for the personal troubles that you experience.
Applying the Sociological Imagination to Personal Troubles. To better understand the connection between personal troubles and historical change, let’s apply the
sociological imagination to Lisa and her grandmother. This means that we want to examine the larger context that shaped their views about abortion. When Lisa’s grandmother was growing up, marriage and motherhood were considered a woman’s destiny,
Read on
MySocLab
Document:
C. Wright Mills,
The Promise
Watch on
MySocLab
Video: Applying
the Sociological
Perspective
Детали
- Год издания
- 2013
- Format